I come from people who did not go to college. They didn't even finish high school. People who one might call ordinary Americans who are very hardworking.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

God's will isn't hidden away like the myths and philosophies and knowledge of the world. Jesus told us openly and daily what his will for us is. Love one another.

Even a little practical working familiarity with cattle goes a long way in Africa, but how many international relations studies include this?

You can shut out the world. But you always have to stop, and the world is always waiting when you do.

I don't need some jerk like Romney, Santorum, Obama, Bush, Clinton or the rest of them telling me that they're my leaders. They couldn't lead me across the street.

A blur of great magic is still just a blur.

As I breathe, I hope.

God is at work in the mess. That's the message of the Bible. That's why the Bible is not pretty. That's why it's grimy, because God is working in the mess. He's working in the tears.

Like a good general, I treated everyone who wasnt with me as against me.

Every human being has the right to search for happiness, and by 'happiness' is meant something that makes other people feel content.

We all want heroes and we all want somebody to look up to.